24fps

Trumbo's pretty bad with the glove and reverting to form during the second half of the season offensively. Big muscles though. Meanwhile Trumbo was due come to bat 5th in the 9th and Bourn and Stubbs were available as defensive replacements in the 8th with Kim available to bat in the 9th if the 5th spot was ever reached. I don't care in the slightest about conventional wisdom in this case. Buck missed an opportunity here IMO.

I have no problem believing that. He strikes me as someone who would be great to have a couple of beers with as long as no cameras or mics were nearby.

Nah. The real baseball gods crapped on him for ten long years. He doesn't want to have anything to do with those bozos.

Should we lay the blame for Gonzo consistently outperforming his peripherals from 2012-2014 and Chen's success in the AL East at the feet of Petersen and Duquette as well? No one is more skeptical than I am about using rigid doctrine as a method for extracting the best out of an individual. Count me among those who believe the current policy in regard to using the cutter ought to be reconsidered, but the questions you allude to are being asked around here all the time.

Looks like a ballplayer. Welcome Cody!

What's the culprit this time? Tainted guacamole at Chuy's?

We could start by getting rid of Smilin' Rob. That would be more entertaining than watching Big Papi get rung up and tossed.

No they're not credulous. That's why they didn't reinstate him outright.

I would be pretty damn careful if several million dollars in potential earnings hung in the balance. Dad pulled US $66.5 million out of the game. It's not like what's at stake is some kind of mystery only decipherable outside the DR.

In a world considerably less magical than the DR evidently. Do you honestly buy this horse manure?

And Tennessee is a very different world from yours. That doesn't mean I suffer unaccountable (but nonetheless welcome) muscle growth every time I come down with bronchitis.

Nothing safer than an assumption, right? The burden is not on the clubs nor could it be in any practical sense. To think that medical opinions are not available to players in an environment where PED's have been unequivocally banned for a decade is simply not credible. The notion that clubs should have their own pharmacies on the off-chance that a player might inadvertently stray is ludicrous, but providing an option for them to make a phone call to someone knowledgeable isn't. I would be surprised if that service hasn't been available for a very long time. It would be a very short-sighted agent indeed who didn't recognize the benefits of that arrangement regardless of a club's position on the matter.

Major League baseball isn't played in the Dominican Republic, it's played in the United States and Canada. DR culture has no bearing whatsoever on rules designed to prohibit PED use in the United States and Canada. What does DR culture have to do with anything? Are we supposed to have a different set of rules for "kids" from the DR? Including kid who are the offspring of former MLB All-Stars?

Kids from the DR named Mondesi have representation who can explain in detail what's in everything consumable he buys including what he feeds his cat. Junior got an $800,000 signing bonus, enough for a pharmaceutical consultation from time to time. Especially seeing how they're free at Rite Aid. The compliance burden is on Mondesi, not MLB.

If your major premise is correct, Mondisi is not "taking the fall" for PR purposes, he's taking the fall because he isn't smart enough to take better PEDs. Since when is those who are tasked with enforcing rules obligated to stay on the sidelines until absolute certainty is guaranteed?

Don't forget the always-exciting suppression of the hypothalamic adrenal axis. Or is it the never-exciting?

Several good points in this column IMO. I must say that accusing sports fans of hypocrisy has to be the most yawn-inducing indictment I've seen in many years.

If we're all going to sit around and write a bad TV script how about this for a plot twist: The trainer who's thrown under the bus decides to plea bargain and give detailed testimony, supported by evidence (he's anticipated this possibility, you see) in return for immunity.

On top of lengthy jail sentences for anyone convicted of spiking supplements and hefty liability if it could be proven that the club knew and turned a blind eye or worse, sanctioned it.

That would be a question for PitchFX.

Image recognition software.

This is exactly the right way to think about the problem IMO, even down to the Keith Moon example. Perhaps especially because of the Keith Moon example.

I think you would need a lot more than that to risk the labor problems that would ensue from any wholesale limiting of what the umpires perceive as their prerogatives. I don't think a single bad call would be enough, I think there would need to be some systemic problem that was clear to all before MLB would act. What I think is more likely is that MLB will try to incrementally include technology over time that will improve accuracy. I think that decision is just as likely to be based on gaining a long-term negotiating advantage over the umpires union as it is fixing some existing problem. I don't see enough people viewing the current umpiring situation as so bad that it diminishes their enjoyment of the game. Nor do I see anyone clamoring for immediate change outside a few columnists and denizens of message boards like this one. No one that I know disputes that greater accuracy can be achieved electronically. I also don't know too many people who spend much time pondering how removing human judgement, mainly from calling balls and strikes, would impact the overall fan experience of watching the game. I would be very careful before I assumed the outcome would necessarily be positive, much less self-evident.

The Houston Chronicle has the range of MLB Umpire's salaries ranging from $120,000 to $350,000 yearly excluding benefits which are generous in the extreme. These are estimates but consistent with other reported figures. Based on these figures a rookie ump would gross $10,000 per month. The same article has AAA umpires making $2,600 per month on the low end. Say 25% of a ML salary and potentially considerably less when compared to more senior ML umpires. The prospect of a demotion under my scheme would certainly be attention-getting. BTW, if 33% is getting in the way then make it 10% or even 5%. The process would still have its intended effect. http://work.chron.com/average-yearly-income-major-league-umpires-12468.html What I suggested (I'm well aware that it was and is DOA from a practical standpoint) doesn't exclude electronic aids from the process, just uses them as a teaching tool with real consequences for failure rather than a potentially intrusive element during the game itself. Does the 88%/88.3% differential you reference have any factual basis?

First of all nobody has mentioned firing, only demoting subject to reinstatement after a year if certain conditions are met. Secondly measurement would be electronically derived to the same tolerances being advocated elsewhere in this thread, and subject to the same caveats. Randomness is precisely what the basis for relegation wouldn't be based on, so I'm not clear on what you mean by that. The umps may already be high performing, but the issue (and basis for this thread) is whether they're sufficiently high performing. If you prefer the carrot approach, then a bonus pool could be set up and paid to top performers using the same methodology. Just to be clear, my suggestion is partially tongue-in-cheek, but incentivizing professional improvement is respected in many parts of the business world, why not include it in this discussion as well.